Why Land Rights May Hold Key to Curbing Drug Smuggling in Central America Zach Dyer - The Christian Science Monitor
go to original March 21, 2014

Lidia Romero a member of the Community Police, stands guard on a road at the entrance to the town of Cherán, Mexico, March 6, 2013. (Alan Ortega/Reuters)

Governments in Central America rely on speedboats, surveillance planes, and militarized police forces to fight drug trafficking that has ravaged the isthmus in recent years. But a low-tech solution might offer another way to prevent smugglers: bolstering indigenous land rights.

New research by the El Salvador-based policy research nonprofit PRISMA presented here this week found that well-organized forest communities in Mexico and Central America have successfully defended their land from incursions by criminal gangs who cut down forests for airstrips and convert land for side projects.

Greater recognition of indigenous land rights can motivate communities to manage their forests – including sustainable logging, eco-tourism, and payment for environmental services like carbon dioxide capture – and help deter the expansion of drug trafficking into protected areas, the study found.

Since the mid-2000s, Central America has emerged as an important trafficking corridor after an uptick in maritime interdiction pushed cartels toward overland travel. The US State Department estimates that 86 percent of the cocaine sold in the US, the world’s largest cocaine market, transits Central America. And as Latin American leaders from Uruguay to Colombia to Mexico rethink the US-led war on drugs and its militarized approach, less showy strategies like recognizing indigenous land rights could get more play.

Read the rest at The Christian Science Monitor

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